Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

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Optics and Lasers in Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlaseng

Two-dimensional phase unwrapping method using a refined

D-LinkNet-based unscented Kalman filter
Yandong Gao a, Guanghui Wang a,b,∗, Geng Wang b,∗, Tao Li b, Shubi Zhang a, Shijin Li a,
Yansuo Zhang a, Tao Zhang b
a
School of Environment Science and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
b
Land Satellite Remote Sensing Application Center, Ministry of Natural Resources of P.R.China, Haidian District, Beijing 100048, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Two-dimensional phase unwrapping (2-D PU) has a strong influence on the accuracy of interferometric synthetic
Two-dimensional phase unwrapping (2-D PU) aperture radar (InSAR) data processing results. Phase gradient estimation (PGE) is one of the key steps in the
LinkNet with a pretrained encoder and dilated processing of 2-D PU. Moreover, the accuracy of the PGE will directly affect the accuracy of the final PU result. The
convolution (D-LinkNet)
phase continuity assumption is an important prerequisite for the PGE of traditional 2-D PU methods. However,
Interferometric synthetic aperture radar
the accuracy of PGE is not ideal in areas with high-noise and large-gradient changes. To address this issue, in
(InSAR)
Phase gradient estimation (PGE) this article, we propose a 2-D PU method of an unscented Kalman filter (UKF) using a refined LinkNet with a
pretrained encoder and dilated convolution (D-LinkNet). To the best of our knowledge, this article is the first time
to combine deep-learning and UKF for 2-D PU. First of all, this article analyzes the distribution characteristics
of different terrains. To ensure the accuracy of the training model, we use shuttle radar topography missions
(SRTMs) with different terrains to obtain simulated learning training data. Then, the refined d-LinkNet method
is used to accurately estimate the gradient ambiguity numbers and is combined with the small window median
filter to obtain the vertical and horizontal gradients. Finally, the UKF model is used for 2-D PU. Experiments are
conducted with simulated and TanDEM-X InSAR datasets. In addition, compared with the existing PGE methods
and 2-D PU methods, the experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain more accurate results
than the existing methods.

1. Introduction type comprises path following-based PU methods based on the classic

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has been exten-
sively used in digital elevation models (DEMs), urban surface deforma-
tion monitoring and mine safety monitoring, etc. [1,2]. As a key step
of InSAR data processing, two-dimensional phase unwrapping (2-D PU)
has received extensive attention [3]. 2-D PU is a process for obtain-
ing the absolute phase from the wrapped phase around (−𝜋, 𝜋) Phase
gradient estimation (PGE) is the main factor affecting the accuracy of
2-D PU. The accuracy of the PGE will affect the accuracy of the final
PU result and can even lead to the failure of the PU [4]. The existing
2-D PU methods are based on the phase continuity assumption. More-
over, it is considered that the true phase gradient can be obtained from
the wrapped phase when the interferometric phase without noise [5].
Unfortunately, in actual InSAR data processing, due to factors such as
high-noise and large-gradient changes, the PGE result is not ideal, which
seriously affects the acquisition accuracy of the 2-D PU [6].
In recent decades, many 2-D PU methods have been proposed [7].
These PU methods are mainly divided into two categories [8]. The first
branch-cut [9], which mainly including the quality graph method [10],
the minimum-discontinuity method [11], the mask cut method [12], etc.
These methods are local optimization methods, which can obtain the
unwrapped phase by integrating pixel by pixel according to the phase
gradients. The other type is the optimal estimation 2-D PU method rep-
resented by the minimum cost flow (MCF) [13], which mainly includes
the LP -norm method [14], statistical cost net-work flow (SNAPHU) [15],
etc. This type of method is a global optimal method, which obtains the
unwrapped phase through the approximate minimum of the phase gra-
dients. In summary, PGE has an extremely important impact on 2-D
PU. In the traditional 2-D PU method, when the interferometric phase
does not contain noise, the unwrapped phase gradients are equal to the
true phase gradients [16]. Through this assumption, the phase gradi-
ents can be easily obtained, and then different 2-D PU methods can be
used to obtain the unwrapped phase. However, due to the influence
of phase noise and large-gradient changes, it is difficult to effectively
guarantee the above assumption [17]. In response to this, some novel
PGE methods have been proposed. In path following-based PU, some

∗
Corresponding authors at: Land Satellite Remote Sensing Application Center, Ministry of Natural Resources of P.R.China, Haidian District, Beijing 100048, China.
E-mail addresses: wanggh@lasac.cn (G. Wang), wanggeng@satimage.cn (G. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2022.106948
Received 28 October 2021; Received in revised form 13 December 2021; Accepted 3 January 2022
0143-8166/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al.
scholars have proposed to estimate the phase gradients with the maxi-
mum likelihood (ML) [18] and the amended matrix pencil model [19].
These methods mainly estimate the terrain changes based on local fre-
quency changes to obtain the phase gradients. These methods can obtain
high-precision phase gradient values from noisy interferometric phases.
However, significant gradient phase loss occurs in high-noise areas with
dense fringes [20]. PU in areas with large-gradient changes is currently a
popular research topic [21–24]. In response to this, multi-baseline (MB)
PU has received extensive attention. With the combination of the in-
terferometric phases of different baseline lengths, the range of phase
gradient ambiguity numbers is expanded to eliminate the limitation of
the phase continuity assumption to obtain accurate phase gradients. Yu
and Lan used the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) method combined
with interferometric phases of different baseline lengths to estimate the
phase gradients [25]. This method addresses the low PGE accuracy of
traditional PU methods in large-gradient regions. Gao et al. combined
the CRT gradient estimation method with the unscented Kalman filter
(UKF) method for PU [26]. The UKF can further correct the PGE error
and improve the accuracy of the 2-D PU.
Kalman filter PU is a kind of path following-based method, and this
method has better noise robustness. Loffeld et al. introduced Kalman
filter to PU and analyzed the extended Kalman filter (EKF) PU method
in detail. In addition, the corresponding state and observation equa-
tions are established, which further improves the accuracy of this type
of method [27]. However, the EKF model will lose high-order informa-
tion when processing linearization problems. Therefore, Xie et al. intro-
duced iterated unscented Kalman filter [28] and unscented information
filtering [29] to the PU problem. Experimental results show that these
methods can obtain better results. Ambrosino et al. introduced EKF to
the multichannel InSAR height reconstruction problem. The method can
detect and correctly handle sharp height discontinuities while regulariz-
ing smooth areas. Experimental results show that this method can obtain
better results [30].
Deep-learning technology has been widely used in fields such as
speech recognition and image segmentation. With the in-depth integra-
tion of deep-learning technology in various industries. In recent years,
deep-learning technology has been applied in 2-D PU. Schwartzkopf
et al. [31] proposed a feed-forward multilayer perceptron neural net-
work that detects discontinuities based on the computation of proba-
bilities over a local patch. Zhang et al. [32] proposed a rapid and ro-
bust 2-D PU via deep-learning. This method has better efficiency and
noise robustness. Unfortunately, this method still cannot obtain ideal
results in areas with large-gradient changes. Wang et al. [33] proposed
a one-step robust deep-learning PU, which uses deep-learning to im-
prove the noise robustness of the unwrapped phase results. Spoorthi
et al. [34] proposed a deep convolutional neural network for a 2-D PU
named PhaseNet. Although this method can obtain the ideal PU effi-
ciency, it still cannot obtain ideal results in areas with large-gradient
changes. Then, PhaseNet2.0 was proposed [35]. Although this method is
a significant improvement over the previous methods, there are still sig-
nificant PU errors in the areas with large-gradient changes. Jiang et al.
[36] proposed a deep convolutional neural network PU for fringe projec-
tion 3D imaging, which can still obtain ideal results in high-noise areas.
Although the abovementioned methods can obtain unwrapped results
from interferometric phases with noise, they cannot obtain ideal results
in areas with large-gradient changes. Moreover, none of the above meth-
ods estimate the phase gradients, and the unwrapped results lack the
corresponding physical meaning. In view of the advantages and disad-
vantages of the above methods, Zhou et al. [37] first used deep-learning
methods to estimate the phase gradient ambiguity number and then used
the L1 -norm to obtain the unwrapped results. The experimental results
show that this method can still obtain ideal unwrapped results in high-
noise and large-gradient change areas. Subsequently, they conducted a
review analysis of the deep-learning PU methods and summarized the
existing deep-learning PU methods [38]. In this paper, the advantages
and disadvantages of deep-learning PU methods are introduced in detail,
2
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948
and the development trends and research problems of deep-learning PU
are analyzed. The deep-learning method has been effectively applied in
2-D PU methods, which broadens the research direction of PU, and pro-
vides a good preliminary foundation for the research of deep-learning
in the field of InSAR technology. However, the noise robustness of the
deep-learning PU method and the accuracy of the unwrapped results in
large-gradient change areas still need to be further studied.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that the PGE has an extremely
important impact on the 2-D PU accuracy and can even cause 2-D PU
failure, affecting the accuracy of the final obtained results. Although ex-
isting methods have been used to carry out related research on PGE, PGE
is still the bottleneck problem of 2-D PU in areas with high-noise and
large-gradient changes. In response to the above problems, in this arti-
cle, for the first time, we combine deep-learning and the UKF method for
PU. Firstly, we analyze different terrains, select the appropriate shuttle
radar topography missions (SRTMs) based on the different terrains, and
obtain an InSAR learning dataset. Then, the deep-learning PGE method
is analyzed. A refined d-LinkNet is used to estimate the vertical and hor-
izontal phase gradient ambiguity coefficients and then is combined with
a small window median filter to obtain the vertical and horizontal phase
gradients. Finally, the refined d-LinkNet PGE method is combined with
the UKF model to perform PU. The accuracy of the proposed refined
d-LinkNet PGE method is significantly higher than that of the existing
PGE methods. It is worthwhile mentioning that the proposed refined
d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method can obtain better results than the ex-
isting single-baseline method in areas with large-gradient changes.
This article is organized as follows. In Section 2, the principles of the
2-D PU methods based on the phase continuity assumption are reviewed,
and the basic idea of how to detect the phase gradient information us-
ing different methods is introduced. Then, the design of the refined d-
LinkNet and the selected simulation InSAR dataset analysis used in this
article are presented in Section 3. The refined d-LinkNet PGE method
and UKF-PU method are described in Section 4. In Section 5, the per-
formance of the proposed method is tested on both simulated and real
InSAR datasets. The conclusions are presented in Section 6.
2. Analysis and review
InSAR observes the earth through microwave signals. It obtains mas-
ter and slaver images of the same area and then conjugates the master
and slaver images to obtain the interferometric phase [39]. At this mo-
ment, the obtained interferometric phase is wrapped in (−𝜋, 𝜋) In the
InSAR data processing process, the absolute phase can be obtained from
the wrapped phase. This process is named PU [40]. In the PU process,
PGE is the key research content of different PU methods. In this section,
we review the basic principle of 2-D PU, especially the PGE methods of
the traditional PU methods based on the phase continuity assumption.
2.1. The review of 2-D PU
According to the above, the relationship between the absolute phase
and wrapped phase in 2-D PU is as follows [41]:
𝜓(𝑠) = 𝜑(𝑠) + 2𝑘(𝑠)𝜋 (1)
where 𝜓(𝑠) represents the absolute phase of pixel 𝑠, 𝜑(𝑠) represents the
wrapped phase of pixel 𝑠, and 𝑘(𝑠) represents the phase ambiguity num-
ber of pixel 𝑠. The absolute phase gradient, i.e., the neighboring pixel
difference, can be obtained by:
Δ𝜓(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) = 𝜓(𝑠 − 1) − 𝜓(𝑠)
= 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) − 𝜑(𝑠) + 2Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)𝜋
= Δ𝜑(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) + 2Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)𝜋 (2)
where Δ𝜓(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) represents the absolute phase gradient from pixel 𝑠 to
pixel 𝑠 − 1, Δ𝜑(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) represents the wrapped phase gradient of pixel 𝑠,
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al.
Fig. 1. The phase gradient estimation of traditional PU method. (a) Wrapped
phase image. (b) Vertical phase gradient image of (a). (c) Horizontal phase gra-
dient image of (a).
and Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) represents the phase gradient ambiguity number of pixel
𝑠. According to Eq. (1) and Eq. (2), we can obtain:
𝜓(𝑠) = 𝜓(𝑠 − 1) + Δ𝜓(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)
= 𝜓(𝑠 − 1) + Δ𝜑(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) + 2Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)𝜋
Therefore, we can obtain the final absolute phase according to
Eq. (3). The traditional 2-D PU method uses the phase continuity as-
sumption to obtain the unwrapped phase, and the phase gradient is lim-
ited by the phase continuity assumption. The equation is as follows [42]:
⎧𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) |𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1)| ≤ 𝜋
⎪ in high-noise areas. To our knowledge, the PGNet method is the first
Δ𝜓(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) = ⎨𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) − 2𝜋 𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) > 𝜋
⎪𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) + 2𝜋 𝜑(𝑠) − 𝜑(𝑠 − 1) < −𝜋
⎩ obtain high precision unwrapped results in large-gradient change areas,
According to Eqs. (3) and (4), the phase gradient ambiguity num-
ber Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) is restricted to ±1 and 0. Based on the phase continuity
assumption, the traditional 2-D PU methods can obtain the unwrapped
phase from the wrapped phase according to the wrapped phase gradi-
ent. Unfortunately, noise and abrupt topographic changes are inevitable
in the actual interferometric phase. These factors break the phase conti-
nuity assumption, and the PU results obtained are not ideal [43]. There-
fore, for the 2-D PU process, many scholars have proposed PGE methods
and phase gradient ambiguity number estimation methods to improve
the accuracy of the unwrapped phase.
2.2. Phase gradient estimation analysis
PGE is an important factor to ensure the accuracy of the 2-D PU.
The traditional 2-D PU method obtains the phase gradients by obtaining
the difference between the vertical and horizontal of the wrapped phase
using Eq. (4) (as shown in Fig. 1). The PGE method has been widely used.
However, due to the limitation of the phase continuity assumption, the
ideal PU results cannot be obtained in the areas with the high-noise and
the large-gradient changes.
Regarding the problems with PGE in high-noise areas, the local fre-
quency estimation method can be used. In a local area, the frequency
estimation method considers that the frequency of each pixel to be the
same, that is, the phase gradient to be the same, and then obtains the
PGE. The ML and amended matrix pencil methods are applied to PGE,
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948
and the equation is as follows [18]:
{
Δ𝑉 (𝑠) = 2𝜋𝑓𝑉 (𝑠)
(5)
Δ𝐻 (𝑠) = 2𝜋𝑓𝐻 (𝑠)
where Δ𝑉 (𝑠) and Δ𝐻 (𝑠) represent the vertical and horizontal phase gra-
dients of pixel 𝑠, respectively, and 𝑓𝑉 (𝑠) and 𝑓𝐻 (𝑠) represent the verti-
cal and horizontal local frequencies of pixel 𝑠, respectively. This type of
PGE method uses the relationship between the local frequency and ter-
rain changes to obtain the vertical and horizontal phase gradients and
can obtain phase gradients from the wrapped phase with noise. How-
ever, the efficiency of the ML gradient estimation method is low. The
amended matrix pencil model is applied to PGE to address this issue,
which greatly improves the efficiency of gradient estimation. However,
an obvious gradient loss phenomenon will still occur in the areas with
large-gradient changes.
PGE in areas with large-gradient changes has always been a key
problem for 2-D PU. In response to this, MB PU is proposed. The MB
PU method can expand the range of gradient ambiguity numbers, break
through the limitations of the phase continuity assumption, and solve
the problem of low PGE accuracy in regions with large-gradient changes
[44]. However, the noise robustness of the MB PGE method is poor.
Moreover, the MB method requires at least two interferometric phases
to perform the calculation. Therefore, MB PGE cannot be performed in
a region with only one interferometric phase. Recently, a deep-learning
method named PGNet was applied to the PGE problem. The PGNet
method first converts the PGE problem into a learnable process, using
the wrapped phase 𝜑(𝑠) as the input data and the phase gradient am-
biguity number Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) as the output label. The learning model is
trained with simulated data, so the absolute phase 𝜓(𝑠) of the simulated
data can be obtained. Therefore, the absolute phase gradient ambiguity
(3)
number Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) can be obtained as follows:
Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)=𝑘(𝑠) − 𝑘(𝑠 − 1) (6)
where 𝑘(𝑠)= round((𝜓 (s) − 𝜑(s))∕2𝜋). It is worth noting that to ensure the
accuracy of the training model and most of the unwrapped results, the
PGNet method limits Δ𝑘(𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) to the range {0, ±1}. The PGNet method
can obtain the phase gradient ambiguity number with better accuracy
(4) to use the deep-learning method for PGE. However, PGNet still cannot
and its PGE accuracy still needs to be further improved. Although the
PGNet PGE method has some problems, the PGNet method broadens
the research direction of 2-D PU and provides a good research trend
for 2-D PU. Therefore, this paper proposes a refined d-LinkNet-based
PGE method, which can obtain higher precision phase gradients than
existing methods. Moreover, the UKF 2-D PU method is combined to
obtain the unwrapped phase. The UKF 2-D PU can choose a reasonable
integration path to obtain unwrapped phase. Therefore, the proposed
method can obtain better unwrapped results than existing methods in
areas with large-gradient changes without requiring MB data.
3. d-LinkNet and training data
From the above analysis, it can be seen that deep-learning has been
applied in the 2-D PU method but that the estimation accuracy of the
phase gradient ambiguity number in high-noise areas still needs to be
further improved. Moreover, the existing deep-learning PU method does
not conduct model training for different terrain characteristics, which
limits the model learning. In this section, we introduce and analyze the
deep-learning model and training data used in this article.
3.1. Introduction of the refined d-LinkNet
The detailed network architecture of the d-LinkNet [45] used in this
article is illustrated in Fig. 2, and the details of the network configura-
tion are shown in Table 1. From Fig. 2, we can see that the proposed
3
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

Fig. 2. Illustration of the refined d-LinkNet-based PGE architecture. Wrapped phase image is given as input, and vertical and horizontal phase gradient ambiguity
numbers at each pixel are outputs.

Table 1
Major parameters of the refined d-Linknet-based PGE.

Layer Name #Filters Filter size Output Size

Input – – 256 × 256 × 1

First_conv1 64 3×3 128 × 128 × 64
Encoder_layer1 384 3×3 64 × 64 × 64
Encoder_layer2 1024 3×3 32 × 32 × 128
Encoder_layer3 3072 3×3 16 × 16 × 256
Dilated_layer 1536 3×3 16 × 16 × 256
Decoder_layer3 256 – 32 × 32 × 128
Decoder_layer2 128 – 64 × 64 × 64
Decoder_layer1 96 – 128 × 128 × 64
Final_transconv1 32 4×4 256 × 256 × 32
Final_conv2 2 3×3 256 × 256 × 2
Sigmoid output – – 256 × 256 × 1

network contains three parts: A, B, and C, which are encoder, center

dilation and decoder. d-LinkNet uses LinkNet [46] as the basic skeleton
and uses the trained ResNet34 on the ImageNet dataset as the encoder
of the network. In this article, we set the input image size of the in-
terferometric phase to 256 × 256 pixels. Therefore, we remove layer
4 of the original d-LinkNet encoder to ensure that the feature map is
not too small and to avoid affecting the accuracy of the PGE. From the
figure, we can see that the encoder part of refined d-LinkNet used in
this article has 4 downsampling layers, reducing the size of the feature
map to 16 times smaller than the original image. In areas with large-
gradient changes, the phase gradient information lines are very dense.
Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the gradient information from the in- Fig. 3. The center dilation part of refined d-LinkNet.
terferogram in the areas with large-gradient changes. According to the
characteristics of the interferogram, to avoid the loss of phase gradient
information, we replace the first layer of the convolution kernel with a can obtain high-precision phase gradient information in interferograms
size of 3 × 3. From Fig. 2, we can see that a dilated-convolution layer with dense fringes, complex terrain and long spans of gradient informa-
with a shortcut is added to the central part, which gives the entire net- tion lines. The structure of the center dilation is shown in Fig. 3. We
work stronger recognition ability and a larger receiving field and fu- can see that the center dilation of the refined d-LinkNet used in this
sion of multiscale information. Therefore, refined d-LinkNet not only article is different from that of the original network structure. This is
improves the accuracy of network recognition, but also increases the to avoid interferograms that are too small to affect the accuracy of the
network receiving domain, which greatly improves the ability to retain PGE. The center dilation consists of 4 levels of cascaded dilated convo-
the spatial details of the interferogram. Therefore, the refined d-LinkNet lution, which forms a pyramid structure. The dilated convolution can

4
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al.
Fig. 4. The four representative terrain learning data used to train the model in this article. (a)–(d) Reference SRTM DEM of Litang, Weinan, Wuhan and Tianjin
respectively. (e)–(h)Simulated interferogram of (a)–(d) with 0.8 coherence coefficient.
prevent image resolution reduction and the loss of feature map spatial
information during the downsampling process of the interferogram. Ac-
cording to the single layer dilated convolution feature extraction of the
interferogram, the input wrapped phase feature map is 𝜑(𝑠), and the di-
lated convolution 𝑦(𝑠, 𝑓 , 𝑟) at the position 𝑠 of the 𝑓 -th feature map can
be expressed by the following formula:
𝐸
∑ method. Therefore, appropriate training data are extremely important
𝑦(𝑠, 𝑓 , 𝑟) = 𝜑(𝑠 + 𝑟 ⋅ 𝑒) ⋅ 𝜃(𝑓 , 𝑒) + 𝑏(𝑠) (7)
𝑒=1
where𝑟 is the dilation rate (in this article, the values are 1, 2, and 4),
𝐸 is the size of the convolution kernel, 𝜃(𝑓 , 𝑒) is the 𝑒-th parameter of
the 𝑓 -th convolution kernel, and 𝑏(𝑠) is the bias term. Therefore, the
cascaded dilated convolution of the center dilation can be expressed as:
[ ]
⎧ 𝑊∑ ⋅𝐻 ∑𝐹
⎪𝑐 𝑟 ( 𝑦 ) = 𝑦(𝑠, 𝑓 , 𝑟)
⎨ 𝑠=1 𝑓 =1 (8)
⎪𝑐 ( 𝑦 ) = 𝑐 ( 𝑐 )
⎩ 𝑟+𝑛 𝑟 +𝑛 𝑟
where 𝑐𝑟 (𝑦) is the output gradient information feature map of the expan-
sion coefficient 𝑟, 𝑊 is the width of the feature map, 𝐻 is the height
of the feature map,𝐹 is the number of convolution kernels, and 𝑐𝑟+𝑛 (⋅)
represents iterative calculation; that is, 𝑟 + 𝑛 represents the second con-
volution input and is the previous convolution result, where dilation
rate is 𝑟. Compared with the original d-LinkNet, in this article, the ex-
pansion coefficients of the dilated convolution layer are 1, 2 and 4, and
the receptive fields corresponding to each layer are 3, 7 and 15. The
input image size is 256 × 256, and after the encoding part, the feature
map size is 16 × 16. In this case, in the dilated convolution with expan-
sion coefficients of 1, 2 and 4, each output feature point will see 15 × 15
feature points on the input feature map. This will cover the main part
of the input interferogram feature map and captures the global gradient
feature information.
The decoder used by the refined d-LinkNet in this article is the same
as the original LinkNet, which can ensure computational efficiency. The
5
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948
decoder part uses the transposed convolutional layer for upsampling and
restores the resolution of the feature map from 16 × 16 to 256 × 256 to
obtain the phase gradient information.
3.2. Generation and introduction of the training setting
Learning model training is a key step of the deep-learning PU
for the accuracy and stability of the deep-learning PU method. The exist-
ing deep-learning 2-D PU method uses simulation data for terrain sim-
ulation or uses only the SRTM data of one type of terrain for simula-
tion learning. However, as we all know that the terrain is very complex
in actual situations, and it is difficult to guarantee the accuracy of the
training model for deep-learning training using simulated data or a type
of terrain SRTM alone. According to the height range of the DEM, the
terrain can be divided into plateaus, mountains, hills and plains. The
corresponding phase gradients of interferometric fringes of different to-
pographies and geomorphologies are also different. Therefore, in order
to ensure the accuracy of the deep-learning PU method training model,
in this article, four representative terrain SRTMs are selected for learn-
ing data simulation. The data are shown in Fig. 4. Fig. 4(a) is the SRTM
in the Litang area of Sichuan, which has a large range of high mountains,
and the topography starts relatively large and is obviously plateau to-
pography. Fig. 4(b) shows the SRTM data of Weinan, Shaanxi, which has
obvious mountain characteristics. Fig. 4(c) is the SRTM in the Wuhan
area, which is an obvious hilly area, and Fig. 4(d) is the Tianjin area,
which is an obvious plain area. Then, we obtain the absolute phase and
simulate the interferometric phase. In addition, hypergeometric noise
with a coherence coefficient of 0.8 is added to the interferometric phase
to obtain the input data of the training model. According to Eqs. (4) and
(6), the different terrain simulation data are processed to obtain the
phase ambiguity numbers of different terrains, and the phase ambiguity
numbers are used as the output data of the training model. In this article,
we use 13,008 interferograms for training the network and validating
the network. 80% of the interferograms used for training the network
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

and 20% of the interferograms used for validating the network. Finally,
our network is trained on an NVIDIATM Tesla v100 with 32 GB of GPU
memory. The statistical training time is 12632s.

4. The UKF-PU using d-LinkNet

Deep-learning models have received widespread attention with re-

spect to the 2-D PU problem. This type of method is divided into two
steps. First, the deep-learning method is used to obtain the phase gra-
dient ambiguity numbers, and then the PU method is used to obtain
the final PU result. The deep-learning 2-D PU can quickly obtain high-
precision gradient estimates from the noisy interferometric phase. How-
ever, in order to ensure most of the estimation accuracy, the phase gra-
dients are still limited to (−𝜋, 𝜋) Therefore, there are still limitations in
the areas with large-gradient changes. In response to this, in this arti-
cle, we propose a refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method, which uses
a refined d-LinkNet to obtain the phase gradient ambiguity numbers
and then combines a small window median filter to obtain the vertical
and horizontal gradients. Then, UKF PU is used to unwrap the interfero-
metric phase to obtain the final unwrapped phase. It is worth mention-
ing that in the areas with large-gradient changes, the proposed method
can obtain unwrapped phase with higher accuracy than the existing PU
Fig. 5. The strategy of proposed d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method.
methods. In the following, the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-
PU method will be introduced in detail.

4.1. PGE using refined d-LinkNet areas with large-gradient changes. The UKF 2-D PU basic equation is as
follows:
According to the previous article, when the refined d-LinkNet has
been trained, it can be employed to predict the phase gradient infor-
mation of the wrapped phase image. In this article, we simulate the ⎧𝜓(𝑠) = 𝜓(𝑠 − 1) + 𝛿(𝑠 − 1) + 𝜔(𝑠 − 1)
⎪ { } { }
SRTM data of different terrains and train the model (as shown Fig. 4). ⎨𝜙(𝑠) = sin(𝜓(𝑠)) + 𝑣1 (𝑠) = ℎ[𝜓(𝑠)] + 𝑣(𝑠) (10)
With the addition of different types of noise to the simulated data, the ⎪ cos(𝜓(𝑠)) 𝑣2 (𝑠)
⎩
refined d-LinkNet PGE method can recognize credible phase gradient
information from complicated and noisy interferograms. Therefore, ac-
cording to Eq. (2), we can obtain the vertical and horizontal gradients where 𝜓(𝑠 − 1) represents the absolute phase of the 𝑠 − 1th pixel, 𝛿(𝑠 − 1)
as follows: is the absolute phase gradient, 𝜔(𝑠 − 1) is the PGE error of the 𝑠 − 1th
{ pixel, ℎ[⋅] and 𝜙(𝑠) are the observation coefficient vector and observa-
Δ𝜓̄ 𝑉 (𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) = Δ𝜑𝑉 (𝑠, 𝑠 − 1) + 2Δ𝑘𝑉 (𝑠, 𝑠 − 1)𝜋
Δ𝜓̄ 𝐻 (𝑠 − 1, 𝑠) = Δ𝜑𝐻 (𝑠 − 1, 𝑠) + 2Δ𝑘𝐻 (𝑠 − 1, 𝑠)𝜋
(9) tion value, respectively, and 𝑣1 (𝑠) and 𝑣2 (𝑠) are the observation vari-
ances. Eq. (10) shows that the UKF 2-D PU takes the PGE error as the
where Δ𝜓̄ 𝑉 andΔ𝜓̄ 𝐻 are the PGEs of the vertical and horizontal direc- state equation variance. Therefore, it can further improve the accuracy
tions, respectively (using a 5 × 5 window median filter for slight fil- of refined d-LinkNet PGE. The 2-D UKF PU model can be divided into
tering), Δ𝜑𝑉 and Δ𝜑𝐻 are the vertical and horizontal wrapped phase three steps. The first step is the state equation prediction. The prediction
differences, respectively, and Δ𝑘𝑉 andΔ𝑘𝐻 are the vertical and hori- equation is:
zontal phase gradient ambiguity numbers from the refined d-LinkNet,
respectively.
⎧𝜒 − (𝑠) = 𝑓 [𝜉 (𝑠 − 1)]
⎪ 𝑗 𝑗
4.2. Introduction of UKF PU ⎪ ∑2
⎪𝜓⃗ − (𝑠) = 𝑏𝑚𝑗 𝜒𝑗 ( 𝑠 )
−
⎨ 𝑗=0
(11)
UKF 2-D PU not only has better noise robustness, but also can cor- ⎪ [ ][ ]𝑇
⎪𝑃 − ( 𝑠 ) = ∑ 𝑏 𝑐 𝜒 − ( 𝑠 ) − 𝜓
2
rect the phase gradients and improve the accuracy of the unwrapped ⃗ − (𝑠) 𝜒𝑗− (𝑠) − 𝜓
⃗ − (𝑠) + 𝑄(𝑠 − 1)
phase. UKF 2-D PU is a path following-based method. Different from the ⎪ 𝜓𝜓 𝑗=0
𝑗 𝑗
⎩
traditional 2-D PU method, UKF 2-D PU obtains the unwrapped phase
based on an efficient quality-guided strategy based on a heapsort. This
where 𝜉𝑗 (𝑠 − 1)is the sigma point of the state estimate at pixel 𝑠 − 1. In
strategy ensures that the PU path is always going from a high-quality √
this article, 𝜉0 (𝑠 − 1)=𝜓 ⃗ (𝑠 − 1), 𝜉1 (𝑠 − 1)=𝜓⃗ (𝑠 − 1)+{ (1 + 𝜆)𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠 − 1)},
point to a low-quality point in an area. As we know, an area with large- √
gradient changes, that is, a discontinuous phase, has low-quality in the and 𝜉2 (𝑠 − 1)=𝜓 ⃗ (𝑠 − 1) − { (1 + 𝜆)𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠 − 1)}𝜓 ⃗ (𝑠 − 1) and 𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠 − 1)
quality map. Therefore, the UKF 2-D PU can obtain the unwrapped phase represent the state estimate and its corresponding state estimation co-
through the strategy of "circumnavigation and climbing" in areas with variance, respectively. 𝜒𝑗− (𝑠) represents the predicted values of the
large-gradient changes. As shown in Fig. 5, the orange point is the un- sigma points. 𝑏𝑚 𝑐 𝑚
𝑗 and 𝑏𝑗 refer to the weight factors, 𝑏0 = 𝜆∕(1 + 𝜆),
𝑐 𝑚 𝑐
𝑏0 = 𝜆∕(1 + 𝜆) + (1 − 𝜔 + 𝑙), 𝑏𝑗 = 𝑏𝑗 = 1∕2(1 + 𝜆), (𝑗 = 1, 2), 𝜆 is the pa-
2
wrapped point, and the gray point is the point to be unwrapped. The
red line is the phase discontinuity line. If the path of PU passes through rameter used to adjust the sigma points, and 𝜆 = 𝜔2 (1 + 𝜅) − 1. In this ar-
the red line, the unwrapped result produces a phase jump. Most of the ticle, 𝜔 = 0.01, 𝑙 = 2, and 𝜅 = 0. 𝜓 ⃗ − (𝑠)and𝑃𝜓𝜓
− (𝑠)are the predicted value

existing PU methods use the 2nd path for PU. In comparison, the UKF of the unwrapped phase and its corresponding prediction error covari-
PU method used in this article can use the 1st or 3rd path to obtain the ance matrix, respectively, and𝑄(𝑠 − 1) represents the variance in the
unwrapped phase of the gray point. Therefore, the UKF 2-D PU can ob- phase error of the 𝑠 − 1th pixel. According to Eqs. (10) and (11), we
tain higher precision results than the existing single-baseline 2-D PU in can obtain the predicted value of the observation value of the second

6
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

step, and the equation is as follows:

[ ]
⎧ −
⎪𝜁𝑗 (𝑠) = ℎ 𝜒𝑗 (𝑠)
−

⎪
⎪𝜙− (𝑠) = ∑ 𝑏𝑚 𝜁 − (𝑠)
2

⎨ 𝑗=0
𝑗 𝑗 (12)
⎪ [ ] [ ]
⎪𝑃 − (𝑠) = ∑ 𝑏𝑐 𝜁 − (𝑠) − 𝜙− (𝑠) ⋅ 𝜁 − (𝑠) − 𝜙− (𝑠) 𝑇 + 𝑅(𝑠)
2

⎪ 𝜙𝜙 𝑗 𝑗 𝑗
⎩ 𝑗=0

where 𝜁𝑗− (𝑠) represents the predicted value. 𝜙− (𝑠) and 𝑃𝜙𝜙 − (𝑠) repre-

sent the predicted values of the unwrapped phase at the 𝑠th pixel
and its corresponding prediction error covariance matrix, respectively.
𝑅(𝑠)represents the observation variance. Assume that the unwrapped
phase estimate at a pixel and its corresponding estimate error variance
are 𝜓(𝑠) and 𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠), respectively. Thus, we can obtain the following:

⎧ [ ] [ ]𝑇
− (𝑠) = ∑ 𝑏𝑐 𝜒 − (𝑠) − 𝜓 − (𝑠) ⋅ 𝜁 − (𝑠) − 𝜙− (𝑠)
2
⎪ 𝑃𝜓𝜙 𝑗 𝑗 𝑗
⎪ 𝑗=0
⎪ 𝓁(𝑠) = 𝑃 − (𝑠)∕𝑃 − (𝑠)
⎨ 𝜓𝜙 𝜙𝜙 (13)
⎪ 𝜓(𝑠) = 𝜓 ⃗ − (𝑠) + 𝓁(𝑠) ⋅ [𝜙(𝑠) − 𝜙− (𝑠)]𝑇 Fig. 6. (a) Reference DEM. (b) Simulated noise-free wrapped phase image. (c)
⎪ Simulated wrapped phase image with 0.7 coherence coefficient.
⎪𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠) = 𝑃 − (𝑠) − 𝓁(𝑠) ⋅ 𝑃 − (𝑠) ⋅ 𝓁 (𝑠)𝑇
⎩ 𝜓𝜓 𝜓𝜙

where 𝑃𝜓𝜙− (𝑠) represents the covariance of the predicted value of the 𝑠th

pixel, 𝜙(𝑠) and 𝜙− (𝑠) are the actual and predicted values, respectively,
𝓁(𝑠) denotes the gain matrix of the 𝑠th pixel, and 𝜓(𝑠) and 𝑃𝜓𝜓 (𝑠) rep-
resent the state estimate of the interferometric pattern of the 𝑠th pixel
and the corresponding variance in the estimation error, respectively.
According to Eqs. (10)–(13), we can obtain the unwrapped phase. It
worth to remind that the above equations are all introduced in one-
dimensional algorithmic formulas. Therefore, with the change of 𝑠to 2-
D, the above equations are the 2-D PU model. The 2-D UKF PU has
been proposed, however, the 2-D UKF-PU combined with refined d-
LinkNet has never been mentioned. Moreover, the PU characteristics
of 2-D UKF-PU in large-gradient areas have not been reflected in rele-
vant studies. Therefore, this paper proposes a refined d-LinkNet-based
UKF-PU method, which that optimizes and improves the existing UKF
PU method and gives a detailed introduction to the characteristics of
its PU.
5. Performance analysis
In this section, we conduct the performance evaluation and illustra-
tion of the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method in com-
parison with several representative 2-D PU methods through three ex-
periments. The first experiment demonstrates the PGE robustness of the
refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU on the simulated InSAR dataset com-
pared with that of the existing PGE. The second experiment is also per-
formed on the simulated InSAR dataset, which validates the effective-
ness of the proposed method using the phase gradients from the re-
fined d-LinkNet regarding obtaining the final PU result. The third ex-
periment is performed on an actual InSAR dataset to compare refined
d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU with the MCF, SNAHPU and PGNet 2-D PU
methods.
5.1. Evaluation of the robustness of d-LinkNet PGE
In the first experiment, we test the robustness of the refined d-
LinkNet-based PGE method in detecting the phase gradient ambiguity
numbers on the simulated InSAR data. Fig. 6(a) shows the reference
terrain height, which is also from the SRTM DEM in the Litang area of
Sichuan, China. Fig. 6(b) shows a simulated noise-free wrapped phase
image. Fig. 6(c) shows a simulated wrapped phase image with a coher-
ence coefficient of 0.7. According to the existing research, PGE has an
extremely important influence on 2-D PU. In [37], PGNet was the first
application of deep-learning to the PGE problem. It can be seen from
[37] that PGNet can obtain the phase gradient ambiguity numbers from
an interferometric phase with low coherence. Moreover, the experimen-
tal results show that the phase gradients obtained by the PGNet method
are more accurate than the phase continuity assumption. The PGNet
method provides a good technical means for the PGE of 2-D PU. How-
ever, the accuracy of the phase gradient information estimated by the
PGNet method still needs to be further improved. In view of this, this
article uses a refined d-LinkNet to estimate the vertical and horizontal
phase gradient ambiguity numbers of the interferometric phase. In this
section, we use the simulation data of Fig. 6(c) to conduct experiments
and to compare the accuracy of the PGE results of the phase continuity
assumption, PGNet and the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based method.
The PGE results obtained by different methods are illustrated in
Fig. 7. Fig. 7(a) and (b) are the true vertical and horizontal phase gra-
dient ambiguity numbers of Fig. 6(b) obtained by the traditional phase
continuity assumption. Fig. 6(b) is the interferometric phase without
noise, so the PGE in Fig. 7(a) and (b) is the true phase gradient ambigu-
ity numbers. Fig. 7(c) and (d) are the vertical and horizontal phase gra-
dient ambiguity numbers of Fig. 6(c) obtained by the phase continuity
assumption. The PGE results obtained by the traditional phase continu-
ity assumption contain obvious noise. Fig. 7(e) and (f) are the vertical
and horizontal phase gradient ambiguity numbers of Fig. 6(c) obtained
by PGNet. It can be seen from the figure that the PGNet method can
obtain better PGE results than the phase continuity assumption. How-
ever, there will still be some residual noise, especially between the two
lines. According to phase gradients, we can compute the residue dis-
tribution. Fig. 7(c) and (d) obtained by phase continuity assumption
contains 42,485 residuals, Fig. 7(e) and (f) obtained by PGNet con-
tains 37,597 residuals. Although PGNet can obtain better results than
the phase continuity assumption, there will still be significant noise
residues. Moreover, as the noise content increases, the residual noise
in the PGE result of the PGNet method will also increase. Fig. 7(g) and
(h) are the vertical and horizontal phase gradient ambiguity numbers
of Fig. 6(c) obtained by refined d-LinkNet-based method. From the re-
sults, we can see that the refined d-LinkNet-based method proposed in
this article can obtain better PGE results than the phase continuity as-
sumption and PGNet. Moreover, the refined d-LinkNet-based method
basically has no residual noise phenomenon. Compared with Fig. 7(a)
and (b), it is found that the vertical and horizontal phase gradient am-
biguity numbers estimated by the refined d-LinkNet-based method are
basically consistent with the true phase gradients. It can be seen that the
proposed refined d-LinkNet-based method is an effective high-precision
PGE method.

7
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al.
Fig. 7. (a) - (b)Vertical and horizontal phase gradients image of Fig. 6(b) ob-
tained by the phase continuity assumption. (c) - (d) Vertical and horizontal phase
gradient ambiguity numbers image of Fig. 6(c) obtained by the phase continuity
assumption. (e) - (f) Vertical and horizontal phase gradient ambiguity numbers
image of Fig. 6(c) obtained by PGNet. (g) - (h)Vertical and horizontal phase
gradient ambiguity numbers image of Fig. 6(c) obtained by refined d-LinkNet.
5.2. Simulation-Based 2-D PU performance analysis
In the second experiment, we will examine the PU effectiveness of
the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU by using four different terrains in
Fig. 4 as the test simulation data. We select four pieces of simulated
data from four different terrains in Fig. 4 for data experiments. The
performance of the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is tested
against the other 2-D PU methods on a simulated InSAR dataset, which
is shown in Fig. 8. Fig. 8(a) shows the interferometric phase intercepted
in Fig.4(e). Fig. 8(a) shows that the interferometric phase we intercepted
has certain dense fringe areas, which is an obvious topographic feature
of plateau and mountain areas. Fig. 8(b) shows the interferometric phase
intercepted in Fig. 4(f). It can be seen that the fringes in Fig. 8(b) are
density, which is consistent with the fringe characteristics in mountain-
ous areas. This will also increase the difficulty of PU. Fig. 8(c) shows
the interferometric phase intercepted in Fig. 4(g). Fig. 8(d) shows the
interferometric phase intercepted in Fig. 4(h). Fig. 8(e) is the reference
unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(a). Fig. 8(f) is the reference unwrapped phase
of Fig. 8(b). It is a typical interference phase of hilly terrain. Fig. 8(g)
is the reference unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(c). Fig. 8(h) is the reference
8
Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948
Table 2
Evaluation results of simulation dataset.
PU method RMSE (rad)
Fig. 8(a) Fig. 8(b) Fig. 8(c) Fig. 8(d)
MCF 0.4260 0.5405 0.4285 0.4224
SNAPHU 0.4262 0.5403 0.4282 0.4226
PGNet 0.4226 0.6511 0.4250 0.4186
The proposed method 0.1389 0.3847 0.1412 0.1231
unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(d). We use MCF, SNAHPU, PGNet and the
refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU to wrapped the interferometric phases
of four different terrains, respectively. It is worth mentioning that in
the simulation data experiment, we find that the PU error caused by
the large-gradient change is weakened. Therefore, the simulation data
experiment can compare the noise robustness of different PU methods
in different terrain PU problems. To further analyze the accuracy of dif-
ferent PU methods, we carry out statistical analysis on the unwrapped
results of different PU methods. As shown in Table 2 and Fig. 9, for the
PU results of Fig. 8(a), the root means square errors (RMSEs) of the MCF
and SNAPHU methods are 0.4260 and 0.4262 rad, respectively, which
reflect poor accuracy. The RMSE of PGNet is 0.4226; although the accu-
racy is better than those of the other two methods, it can be seen from
Fig. 9(a) that the PU error distribution of PGNet is relatively discrete.
The RMSE of the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is
0.1389 rad. The accuracy of the PU result is the best, and its PU error dis-
tribution map is more concentrated, and the error distribution is smaller
than those of the other three methods. Table 2 shows that the RMSEs of
the PU results of MCF and SNAPHU in Fig. 8(b) are 0.5405 and 0.5403,
respectively. The RMSE of PGNet is 0.6511. The RMSE of the proposed
refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is 0.3847 rad. In mountain-
ous areas, the accuracy of the PU results of the refined d-LinkNet-based
UKF-PU method proposed in this paper is still better than those of the
other three methods. From the error distribution graph in Fig. 9(b), we
can further see that the PU result of the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-
PU is the best. The accuracy and error distribution of the PU results
of Fig. 8(c) are very similar to the results of Fig. 8(a), and the refined
d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU can still obtain ideal PU results. In plain ar-
eas, the difficulty of PU is greatly reduced; however, the accuracy of the
PU result is still affected due to the influence of noise. For example, in
Fig. 8(d), the RMSEs of the MCF and SNAPHU methods are 0.4224 and
0.4226 rad, respectively. Although the RMSE of PGNet is 0.4186 rad,
which is a higher accuracy than those of the other two methods, it can
be seen from Fig. 9(d) that its error distribution is still relatively large.
The RMSE of the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is
only 0.1231 rad, which is still the best accuracy of the PU methods. The
effectiveness of the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method
is proven through a simulation data experiment on four different ter-
rains.
5.3. Validation of PU performance on real case
To further verify the performance of the refined d-LinkNet-based
UKF-PU method proposed in this article, a TanDEM-X InSAR dataset is
used for verification. Fig. 10(a) is a Google Earth image of the observed
area. Fig. 10(b) shows the TanDEM-X interferogram, and Fig. 10(c) is the
external SRTM DEM. Fig. 10(d) is the reference phase from Fig. 10(c).
The Google Earth image shows many mountains in the study area, and
hence, there are large terrain gradients. Fig. 10(e)–(h) presents the PU
results of the MCF, SNAPHU, PGNet, and proposed refined d-LinkNet-
based UKF-PU methods, respectively. Fig. 10(i)–(l) shows the PU er-
rors between Fig. 10(d) and (e)–(h). It can be seen from the figure
that due to the influence of large-gradient changes, MCF, SNAPHU and
PGNet all produce obvious PU errors, which seriously affects the accu-
racy of the PU results. The PU result of the proposed d-LinkNet-based
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

Fig. 8. PU performance comparison between d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU and representative PU methods on the simulated data set. (a) Interferometric phase intercepted
in Fig. 4(e). (b) Interferometric phase intercepted in Fig. 4(f). (c) Interferometric phase intercepted in Fig. 4(g). (d) Interferometric phase intercepted in Fig. 4(h). (e)
Reference unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(a). (f) Reference unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(b). (g) Reference unwrapped phase of Fig. 8(c). (h) Reference unwrapped phase of
Fig. 8(d).

Fig. 9. Error distribution diagram of the simulated data set results. The horizontal axis is estimate error, and the vertical axis is number of pixels. (a) is the error
distribution diagram of the unwrapped result of Fig. 8(a). (b) is the error distribution diagram of the unwrapped result of Fig. 8(b). (c) is the error distribution
diagram of the unwrapped result of Fig. 8(c). (d) is the error distribution diagram of the unwrapped result of Fig. 8(d).

Table 3 Table 4
Major parameters of the TanDEM-X dataset. Evaluation results of TanDEM-X dataset.

Orbit Altitude Incidence Angle Wavelength Normal Baseline PU method Figure RMSE (rad)

514.8 km 36.6° 0.032 m −370.45 m MCF Fig. 10(i) 14.5887

SNAPHU Fig. 10 (j) 15.6025
PGNet Fig. 10 (k) 9.5272
The proposed method Fig. 10(l) 3.4857
UKF-PU method also produces plaque understanding errors. However,
the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method, which relies on
the strategy of "circumnavigation and climbing”, can obtain PU results
with accuracy far exceeding those of the other three PU methods. To 6. Conclusions
further verify the performance of the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU
method, we analyze the PU errors of the different PU methods. As shown Areas with high-noise and large-gradient changes have always been
in Table 4, the RMSEs of the MCF, SNAPHU, and PGNet methods are the main challenge in InSAR 2-D PU. PGE is a key step in the process-
14.5887, 15.6025 and 9.5272 rad, respectively. In contrast, the RMSE ing of 2-D PU, and the accuracy of PGE directly affects the accuracy
of the d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is only 3.4857 rad, which is sig- of the PU result. Therefore, it is particularly important to obtain high-
nificantly better than those of the other three methods. The experiments precision phase gradients in high-noise areas. Large-gradient changes
on real data confirm that the proposed refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU have always been a key issue of 2-D PU, especially for single-baseline
method can obtain better results than other PU methods in areas with PU. In response to these problems, in this article, the 2-D PU method of
large changes Table 3. the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU is proposed. Therefore, it is partic-

9
Y. Gao, G. Wang, G. Wang et al. Optics and Lasers in Engineering 152 (2022) 106948

Fig. 10. PU performance comparison between d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU and representative PU methods on the TanDEM-X InSAR dataset. (a) Google Earth image of
the observed area. (b) TanDEM-X interferogram. (c) The external DEM. (d) Reference PU result of (b) obtained from the external DEM. (e)–(h) are the PU results of
(b) obtained by MCF, SNAPHU, PGNet and d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU, respectively. (i)–(l) are differences between (d) and (e)–(h).

ularly important to obtain high-precision phase gradients in high-noise releases from patients whose names or photographs are submitted as
areas. Large-gradient changes have always been a key issue of 2-D PU, part of the work.
especially for single-baseline PU. The proposed method uses a refined
d-LinkNet to estimate the phase gradient ambiguity coefficient and ob- Declaration of Competing Interest
tains high-precision phase gradient information from the interferometric
phase with noise. To ensure the accuracy of the refined d-LinkNet train- None.
ing model, four different terrain SRTMs are selected for training data
simulation in the article. Then, the phase gradient ambiguity coefficient
CRediT authorship contribution statement
estimated by the refined d-LinkNet and the median filter of the small
window are combined to obtain the vertical and horizontal gradients.
Yandong Gao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Valida-
Finally, the UKF based on heapsort unwraps the interferometric phase.
tion, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Funding ac-
The performance of the refined d-LinkNet-based UKF-PU method is eval-
quisition. Guanghui Wang: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – re-
uated using simulations and real data experiments, and the results show
view & editing, Project administration. Geng Wang: Validation, Formal
that the method proposed in this paper has better noise robustness than
analysis, Project administration. Shubi Zhang: Investigation, Supervi-
the existing PU methods and can obtain better unwrapped results than
sion. Shijin Li: Resources, Supervision.
other methods in areas with large-gradient changes.

Authorship responsibility Acknowledgements

Each author certifies that he or she has participated sufficiently in
the preparation of the present work to take public responsibility for it.
Each has reviewed the final version of the work, believes it is a valid
work, and approves it for publication.
Disclaimer
Each author warrants that this work contains no libelous or unlawful
statements and does not infringe on the rights of others. If excerpts (text,
figures, tables, or illustrations) from copyrighted works are included, a
written release will be secured by the authors prior to submission, and
credit to the original publication will be properly acknowledged. Each
author warrants that he or she has obtained, prior to submission, written
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (No: 42001409), China Postdoctoral Science Founda-
tion (No: 2020M681770), National Key R&D Program of China (No:
2017YFE0119600), and Development Fund of the Key Laboratory of
Land Satellite Remote Sensing Application Center, Ministry of Natural
Resources of P.R. China (No: KLSMNR-202103). The authors also thank
the anonymous reviews for their constructive comments and sugges-
tions.
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